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'The Coalition Has Fallen Apart': Ukraine's Prime Minister Resigns

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who stepped down as Ukraine's Prime Minister on July 24, walks during a visit to headquaters of Ukrainian forces near small Ukrainian city of Izyum, in Kharkiv region on July 16, 2014.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk tendered his resignation abruptly on Thursday after two parties abandoned the ruling coalition in parliament, a move that would allow President Petro Poroshenko to call early parliamentary elections.

Addressing lawmakers inside Kiev’s Verkhovna Rada, Yatsenyuk said he was relinquishing his post because parliament could no longer do its work and pass necessary laws.

“The fact is that the coalition has fallen apart, that laws haven’t been voted on, that soldiers can’t be paid, that there is no money to buy rifles, that there is no possibility to fill gas storages,” Yatsenyuk said, according to Interfax news agency.

The UDAR party headed by boxer-turned-politician Vladimir Klitscho and nationalist Svoboda party pulled out of the majority coalition with Yatsenyuk’s Batkyvshchyna Party in parliament earlier on Wednesday. This week a brawl broke out between members of the Svoboda party and the Party of Regions after Yuri Levcheko, a Party of Regions MP from the embattled Donetsk region, said the Svoboda party "kills its citizens."

The step allows Poroshenko to call snap parliamentary elections — likely to be held in October — if a new coalition is not formed within 30 days.

A peace deal between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists?

Early parliamentary elections were a key demand of protesters who toppled the previous government and voted Poroshenko into office in May. The current parliament is comprised of pro-Russian lawmakers elected during Yanukovych’s tenure in 2012, including members of his Party of Regions and the Communist Party, which parliament voted to dissolve on Wednesday.

Taras Berezovets, director of the Kiev-based Berta Communication, a political consultancy, wrote on Facebook that he predicted the collapse of the parliamentary coalition would happen this week.

“For Poroshenko it’s disadvantageous dragging the date of re-elections because of the uncertainty with the end of hostilities in the Donbass,” he said, referring to conflict plaguing Ukraine’s eastern regions.

The government has refused to negotiate with separatist leaders, many of whom are Russian citizens Kiev has labeled “terrorists.” It has said negotiations can be held only with legitimately elected, Ukrainian officials. Early elections could allow for peace talks.

Also, elections sooner rather than later would allow the president to capitalize on the growing anti-Russian and pro-European sentiment that has taken hold of the country.

“In addition, the crash of the Boeing [Malaysia Airlines Flight 17] gave Ukraine irrefutable proof of Russia’s guilt [in the eastern conflict] and as a result has changed in our favor the geopolitical game,” Berezovets said.

In a statement on his official site on Wedenesday, Poroshenko welcomed the decision of the two parties to leave the majority coalition, saying it “demonstrates that part of people’s deputies do not clutch hold of their chairs, but feel the mood of voters and are guided by it.”

“All public opinion polls as well as direct communication with people demonstrate that the society wants a complete reload of state power,” he added. “Still, I am confident that the decision of the people’s deputies to pull out of coalition shouldn't paralyze the work of the Parliament.”

Ukraine’s Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov called on the UDAR and Svoboda parties to propose a candidate for interim prime minister. That person will head the government until the parliamentary elections, after which lawmakers can appoint a new prime minister.

“I will convene a special session at any time to consider the candidacy,” Interfax reported Turchynov as saying.

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